Time is Waiting in the Wings
by DancingLikeWater
Summary: Dilandau and Folken have absolutely nothing to do. Boredom and frustration ensue.


He was sitting there, staring, staring staring as always. Dilandau was lucky, yes. Lucky to have this rank and this job and the life he was leading, but what a price! Folken was so insufferable at times. Most of the time. You could feel it, the boredom that he suffered. If only he could suffer that alone! But then, Dilandau would also be alone. What a price it was.

There were no particular missions in the near future, no training or polishing up that needed to be done, no paperwork to finish. The day was still, and no break from all the monotony was in sight. If only they could sleep it off. But how long could he manage to sleep before it made him sick? He had to sit there. He had to endure the painful bizarre gaze of the Strategos. How long was Folken going to do that? He wanted to ask Folken why he was doing that, ask him to stop and go do something else. But there was no getting what he wanted, no compromise. Folken didn't –want- to stop, and Folken didn't have to. Dilandau had nowhere to go, so there was no alternative. He just kept staring and staring and staring.

The weather! What about the weather? Dilandau rarely went outside, and never without being in his guymelef. He could ask about the weather, seeing as he would have no way of knowing. But Dilandau never cared about the weather, because it didn't make any difference to him. It didn't affect him in the slightest, but it was always the question people asked when they were bored.

Maybe he could ask…no, no. Nothing. Folken wouldn't have any new information. He hadn't gone anywhere, and he couldn't have gotten any new information with telepathy. Or could he? Folken was so bizarre, you never knew what he was capable of. He was rather frightening at times that way. His past was not much discussed, not that Dilandau really wanted to get to know the Strategos. What was he really like? It was only at times like these that Dilandau wondered, because there was honestly nothing else to think about and he had to think of something. His other thoughts were less pleasant and tangible, reaching at things that weren't really there and proclaiming that they felt like mountains. Folken was something more than a invisible mountain. He was a brightly shining obstacle that never went away.

Dilandau stared anywhere but where Folken was. The ceiling, the walls, the furniture, the floor. None of it escaped Dilandau's scrutiny. He looked his shoes over and found something to waste a good bit of time. Were they perfect? They were always perfect, but were they now? Every inch of them well cleaned and polished and oiled. His armor was always treated in this manner. It had to be perfect, as everything he took into battle must be.

He could finally avoid it no longer. There was nothing left, and he couldn't look over the same things without screaming.

"What time is it!" His previously composed and calm face were over-wrought with emotion, which seemed so out of place and randomly come about.

Folken stared on as before, never faltering before the fluidly shifting Dilandau.

"There is a clock in the corner, is there not?" Folken replied. "I should hope your eyesight is not so poor that you can not see it."

"The clock is closer to –you-, and therefore –you- should tell me what it says, Strategos."

"It is nearing the close of the day. We have only three hours to go."

"Three hours! Three…No. No, no, no!"

"Would you disagree with a time-piece, Dilandau?"

Dilandau glared at Folken. Folken was only trying to fight with him, and in his usual insufferable way he didn't intend to allow Dilandau to win. No matter how hard Dilandau tried, Folken had some trick up his sleeve that kept Dilandau in that low place Folken liked to keep him in.

"Stop antagonizing me," Dilandau replied.

"I have done nothing to you."

"You've restricted my right to any diversion I usually make use of."

"You've grown out of control, and we can't have you doing anything unseemly. What would you have me do? Favor you over all others and ignore army protocol? I would hardly expect you to show the same mercy to any under your command."

This was too much.

"I do everything you ask me to! Just because you don't like the way that I do it doesn't mean that you should deny the fact that I have been working! You give me no end of trouble, and then you insult and punish me because of all the trouble you've caused. Why can't you just leave me alone!" Dilandau was quite exasperated.

"You have repeatedly defied my wishes, and I will not give you what you want."

"This is revenge, and it's childish. All I'm asking for is a drink, and all you're doing is trying to punish me for not cowing to your treacherous desires. What you're doing is –wrong-."

"I have the moral imperative here, I am afraid. You have no leverage."

Dilandau tried to calm down. He couldn't win this fight, and having dealt with Folken many times before, he knew that if he let himself get riled up over nothing Folken could do any number of horrible things to him. Folken was just waiting for him to slip up and go crazy.

"You're the most evil man I've ever met, Folken."

Folken remained silent and went back to staring. Dilandau shut his eyes quite tightly and tried to think of anything to keep him from remembering that there was nothing there. Nothing but two men who had nothing to do, one with nothing in his heart and the other with nothing in his future and both with nothing to keep them from trying to do eachother in. Although one had an advantage of power that would not go unnoticed, and how intolerable it all was. How miserable.

While Dilandau searched his mind, Folken reached over and set the clock back another hour. This should prove interesting, he thought, and add a little more amusement to the day. In reality, Dilandau would be able to leave in twenty minutes, but there wasn't anything in particular he needed to do the following day. It wouldn't matter. There was nothing and nothing and nothing.

Two men given all the time in the world found the gift such a curse that by all rights should have been lifted, but the creator was not to be found or punished. Neither had asked for it and neither had much of a choice in the matter, though both had to find some way of dealing with it. Time was so palpable and tangible a thing that they could hold it in their hands and marvel at it or swear at it, but never could they mangle it for it was far too strong and willful. Overpower and immortal, this bizarre entity both of destruction and healing reigned over men of every path and every walk of life. Even these two, who were left by the wayside to ponder the other passersby and pass each night the grave company of the unwelcomed fiend.

Everything else was merely a distraction. The only great war they would ever wage would be with time itself.


End file.
